The one Michelin star Zass restaurant
is nestled in one of the world’s ten or fifteen most beautiful and famous
hotels, the San Pietro in Positano, a building settled on a mountainous slope just
outside Positano and overlooking an impossibly beautiful stretch of baby-blue
sea. The hotel is owned by the Cinque family and is blessed with standout
professionals who will ensure your stay is memorable and relaxing. General
manager Andrea Zana is helpful and genuinely passionate about his work, while head
chef Alois Vanlangenaeker, who long manned the stoves during one of the
brightest periods of Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi’s famous Don Alfonso 1890
restaurant, is now running things at the one Michelin star Zass. The restaurant
has a beautiful view and offers a fresh maritime cuisine based on fresh
ingredients and only deceptively simple preparations.

While sitting at my table
looking at the sea and star studded night sky, I started things off in style
with a dish of poached egg, crab salad, asparagus, rye bread and salted fish
roe that was far more flavorful and focused than the perhaps overly
intellectual, almost deconstructed anchovy sandwich.

These two dishes partnered
well with the 2011 Pietracupa Fiano di
Avellino, beautifully taut and steely, with penetrating apple and fresh
herb aromas and flavors. I then moved on to the lemon tagliatelle, lovely and
creamy rich with noteworthy lemony lift, while the burrata risotto was heavenly
rich and concentrated. I switched wines and opted for the 2007 Vincent Dancer Chevalier Montrachet. A huge wine with aromas
and flavors still camouflaged under an oaky shroud.

With the lemony notes of
the tagliatelle and the passion fruit nuances of the red mullet dish, my main
course, the Chevalier picked up nuance and grace.

And though the red mullet was
very fresh and precisely cooked, it was my dessert that proved the best dish of
the night, silky apple crêpes characterized by marvelous acid-sugar balance
and uncommon purity and precision. Should you be vacationing on the Amalfi
coast anytime next spring or summer, an experience at Zass is not to be missed.